General-Purpose Microcontrollers Equipped in 24-Pin Compact
Package Support Up to 13 Sensors

SANTA CLARA, Calif. — (BUSINESS WIRE) — September 29, 2016 —
Renesas Electronics America Inc., a premier supplier of advanced
semiconductor solutions, today announced the RL78/G11 Group of
microcontrollers (MCUs), a group of small-package, low-power MCUs that
will enable users to easily and more quickly prototype and develop
systems that support low-power sensor hubs and sensor application
systems. Designed to connect to multiple sensors and convert the sensor
output signals to digital data, these compact sensor hubs are used in a
wide range of applications, such as computer operating environment
monitoring for data center thermocouples in the industrial area,
wearable health management devices in the healthcare field, and
environmental sensing in greenhouses and factory farms in the
agricultural industry.

The influx of information generated by big data combined with
improvements in automation and sensor functions are opening new
opportunities to improve business operations and ultimately contribute
to improved quality of life. This has been true in many areas, notably
in the industrial, healthcare, and agricultural areas.

In the industrial area, there are hopes for improving the efficiency of
cooling and air conditioning by monitoring operation environments of
computers and key communication equipment in data centers, and
predicting failures by collecting and analyzing operating data. In the
healthcare area, the data recording and analysis of blood pressure,
pulse rate, and other data by wearable equipment could support
day-to-day health maintenance and lead to the early discovery of
diseases. In the agricultural area, monitoring the growth environment
and conditions for crops with environmental sensors could lead to both
cost savings, i.e., in fertilizers and heating and lighting costs, and
improved crop quality overall. Increasingly higher-level sensing and
even more sensors are required for these sorts of technology
deployments, and the associated increased power consumption has become
an issue, especially in battery-operated equipment.

There is also a trend toward rapid prototyping and shortening
development time by using for example 3D printing and other
technologies, and efforts are also needed in MCU development
environments to easily support rapid prototyping and development.

The RL78/G11 MCUs were developed with these needs in mind, addressing
not only miniaturization, lower power, and extended battery life in
sensor hub and sensor application systems, but also the need for reduced
user prototyping and development periods. Renesas will also provide a
comprehensive development environment that includes evaluation boards,
development tools, and software, to contribute both to power-saving
electronic devices and to achieving an ecologically friendly society.

Key features of the RL78/G11:

(1) Support for up to 13 sensors in a 24-pin
package

The RL78/G11 Group of MCUs supports the industry's largest number of
sensors1 in an MCU with 24 pins. The 24- and 25-pin versions
of these new MCUs support 11 analog input channels and six serial
communications channels. Even with the 24-pin compact package, the
RL78/G11 MCUs can support signal inputs from a maximum of 13 sensors.
Processing of the signal inputs from the sensors by the built-in analog
functions and serial communications (reception) functions that operate
even in standby mode allows low-power control, even in systems with
multiple sensors.

The RL78/G11 Group provides extended features, such as high-speed
wakeup, which transitions the CPU transitions from standby mode to CPU
operation in 4 μsec (four-millionths of a second) and flash operating
mode transitions that optimize the CPU operating performance and that
contribute to energy savings. These MCUs also support battery voltage
measurement and sensing referenced to an internal fixed voltage that
operates from a 1.8 V power supply. Taking advantage of these functions
reduces intermittent operation power consumption and contributes to
further energy savings and longer battery life in sensor hubs and sensor
application systems.

The RL78/G11 Group concept is based on small packages from 20 to 25
pins, with small 16 KB flash memory and rich analog peripherals such as
A/D converters, D/A converters, comparators, and PGA. These are
configurable, such as PGA+ADC+VBGR, PGA+CMP, CMP+DAC/VBGR,
or PGA+CMP+DAC/VBGR. It also supports very low power
operation (100 uA @ 1 MHz) and a high-speed 4 µs wake up. Available in
small 3 x 3 mm2 WFLGA , 4 x 4 mm2 HWQFN and
standard 20-pin LSSOP, this MCU Group is suitable for sensor
applications, lighting/power sources and various small appliances.

In addition to the standard development environment for the Renesas RL78
Family of 16-bit MCUs, Renesas is developing ultra-compact promotion
boards and easy-to-use programming tools for these new devices. These
tools will support program debugging and downloading, and can also
support prototyping using breadboards and conductive ink pens. The
easy-to-use programming tools allow MCU programs to be developed using
only GUI operations. Periodical operation using the standby functions is
supported. Renesas is moving forward in providing a new easy-to-use
development environment that will allow prototyping and evaluation
operations to be completed in a single day, where previously it would
have taken an entire week.